The Nixon-Ford Presidencies

On January 20, 1969, Richard Nixon took
the oath of office as 37th President of the United States. In a three-man race that
included former Governor of Alabama George C. Wallace,
Republican candidate Nixon narrowly defeated the Democratic
nominee, Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President in the Johnson
Administration.

Nixon was no stranger to the
White House, having served
two terms as Vice President during the Eisenhower years. In
1960, battling John F. Kennedy for the Presidency, he had lost by
only 118,000 votes out of 69 million cast. Two years later, after
he lost his campaign to become governor of California, most
political observers concluded that his political career was over.
Nixon moved to New York City to practice law, and there,
without a political base, he rallied his forces to achieve the political
comeback of the century.

As President, Nixon gave priority to foreign affairs and
significantly redirected United States policies. In July 1969 he
outlined the broad principle that would guide his Administration;
he defined the Nixon Doctrine with these words:

"Its central thesis is that the United States will participate in
the defense and development of allies and friends, but that
America cannot-and will not-conceive all the plans, design all
the programs, execute all the decisions and undertake all the
defense of the free nations of the world. We will help where it makes
a real difference and is considered in our interest."

During the campaign, Nixon had promised to end the war in
Vietnam and so began to slowly but steadily withdraw American
troops while continuing strong military campaigns and pursuing
a negotiated peace settlement. Although most Americans seemed
to support the President's policy of gradual withdrawal,
increasing numbers of Americans came to favor an immediate end to
the war. These dissenters made their views known in peace
demonstrations that were often of massive proportions. Settlement
finally came in January 1973, and two months later the last
American combat soldier left Vietnam. Fighting between
Vietnamese, however, continued: American particpation in the war
had cost the country more than 57,000 servicemen killed, more
than 300,000 wounded, and more than $135,000 million.

During his first term, Nixon worked hard to improve
relations with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union.
Reversing U.S. policy of a quarter of a century, he approved
economic trade, cultural exchanges, and political
communications with China, highlighted in 1972 by a personal visit to the
world's most populous country. Nixon likewise promoted greater
trade and lessening of political tension in U.S. relations with the
Soviet Union, dramatized by a personal visit to Moscow. In 1972
this policy helped produce an agreement between the two
countries to limit the number of their antiballistic missile sites and
strategic offensive missiles ABM-treaty.

The Nixon domestic record was one of paradox.
He increased benefits under the Social Security Act, continued federal
subsidized housing for low- and middle-income families, and
increased federal support of education. Innovatively, he reversed
the trend toward centralization by distributing, through a
revenue-sharing program, a portion of federal monies to state and
local governments. On the other hand, he vetoed bills to cleanse
polluted waterways, to construct public works, and to establish
child-care centers for preschool children of mothers who needed
to work. He also put less stress on federal government activities
on behalf of black Americans.

Continued deficit spending to finance the war in Vietnam
and other federal programs eroded the stability of the dollar in
the world. This and other world developments brought about the
breakdown of the post-1944 system of international exchange
based upon American financial leadership. To combat inflation
at home, President Nixon experimented with wage and price
controls, but the economy continued to exhibit a high inflation rate.

Perhaps the most spectacular event of President Nixon's first
term of office was the landing on the moon, on July 21, 1969, of
astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, while astronaut
Michael Collins orbited the moon in the mother ship of the
Apollo 11 mission. After landing their lunar craft, Armstrong
and Aldrin remained for several hours gathering rocks and other
specimens to take back to earth for study. They also staked an
American flag and a plaque reading We came in peace for all
mankind.

With definite achievements in foreign policy overshadowing
his mixed performance at home, President Nixon faced the
election of 1972 as a heavy favorite to defeat the Democratic
candidate George McGovern, Senator from South Dakota. On election
day, when 18-year-olds could vote for the first time, Nixon
carried 49 states and won 60.6 percent of the total vote, one of the
highest percentages in American history. Ironically, the country
again elected a Democratic Congress, as it had in 1968 and 1970.

An obscure event which occurred during the 1972
campaign-the attempted burglary of the Democratic Party's
National Headquarters in the Watergate apartments in downtown
Washington, directed by members of President Nixon's
campaign committee-triggered what was to become a major
domestic crisis. During 1973 and 1974, charges of illegal activities by the
Nixon Administration mounted from the press, politicians and
former Nixon aides. Subsequent investigations by Congress, a
federal grand jury and a special independent federal prosecutor,
and the resultant trials, disclosed that top Nixon Administration
figures had violated due process of law in an attempt to sabotage
the Democratic Party campaign in 1972. Charges included
soliciting of illegal contributions, withholding of criminal evidence,
violation of individual civil liberties, illegal use of federal agencies,
and perjury before grandjuries, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and Congressional committees.

At first only circumstantial evidence implicated President
Nixon, but when the Supreme Court ordered him to make
available the tapes of conversations recorded in the Presidential office,
it became evident that the President had early knowledge,
previously denied, of an attempt to deny proper legal authorities
information relating to the Watergate burglary. On August 9, 1974,
facing certain impeachment and probable eviction by Congress,
Nixon became the first President in American history to resign
from office.

President Nixon's resignation came only ten months after
the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. In an
investigation unrelated to the charges against Nixon and his aides, a
federal attorney uncovered evidence that Agnew had taken bribes
while holding public office. Agnew decided to resign and to plead
no contest to a lesser charge of filing fraudulent tax returns,
rather than challenging the government's bribery case in court.

To fill the vacant office of Vice President, as mandated by the
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution, President Nixon
nominated Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids,
Michigan. The
minority leader of the Republican Party in the House of
Representatives, Ford was a veteran Congressman with twenty-five
years of service and solid standing among his
colleagues-Republicans and Democrats alike. After exhaustive hearings both
Houses of Congress voted their overwhelming approval of
Gerald R. Ford as the new Vice President.